Before:After
by BrokenBottlesFormScars
Summary: Life goes on. Except when it doesn't. Post-DH. Everyone grieves in different ways. Various pairings. Winner of the 2014 Golden Paw, Best Character Development & Winner of the Golden Snitches 2014, Best Angst.
1. Chapter 1

**Format:** Short story

 **Chapters:** 2  
 **Word Count:** 9,389  
 **Status:** COMPLETED

 **Rating:** Mature  
 **Warnings:** Strong violence, Scenes of a mild sexual nature, Substance abuse, Sensitive topic/issue/theme, Spoilers

 **Genres:** Romance, Angst, Young Adult  
 **Characters:** Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fleur, Fred, George, Ginny, Neville, Seamus, OtherCanon  
 **Pairings:** Harry/Ginny, Bill/Fleur, Ron/Hermione, Neville/Luna, Other Pairing

 **First Published:** 06/03/2012  
 **Last Chapter:** 11/22/2014  
 **Last Updated:** 11/22/2014

 **Summary:**

CREDITS | Contour tda

Life goes on. Except when it doesn't.

 _Post-DH. Everyone grieves in different ways. Various pairings._

Winner of the 2014 Golden Paw, Best Character Development  
& Winner of the Golden Snitches 2014, Best Angst.

 **Chapter 1: part one**

 **A/N:** So, _this_ is a post war - thingy. It's a neat little thing, written about Neville, Hermione, Parvati, Fleur, Harry and George. I kept on listening to People Help the People by Birdy, give it a listen. This one is Parvati, Neville & Hermione. Enjoy xx

EDIT: This story won _Best Angst_ at the Golden Snitches 2014 & _Best Character Development_ at the Golden Paw Award 2014. Thank you so much to everyone who voted! This means the world to me.

 **BEFORE : AFTER**  
(part one)  
SUNFLOWER

 **what the hearts (wants) needs**

(parvati patil)

 _we die to each other daily. what we know of other people is only our memory of the moment during which we knew them. – ts. elliot_

She has taken to drinking. In pubs that are scruffy and dirty with sticky floors and appalling drunk men with long beards who smell like sour onions and chicken tikka masala mixed together. And before you ask, yes it is possible to smell that bad. And yes, she sees the irony. The smell fills her up, whisking her off to a day, nine years old with her mother standing by the stove. That's the only image she has of her mother. But the image sticks. You know, the Indian bird drinking hard-core liquor and _still_ not escaping her mother's reproachful gasp, _Parvati_.

Really, she had figured she would be better at this.

When she was younger she used to keep a fancy black dress, this drapey thing with long laced sleeves and a slit in the side. It was in case of a funeral, she told herself. This was the only reason she ever kept it: so that she would have something appropriately (fashionably) sad to wear. In case.

 _In case -_

It survived five years of discarded clothes. It's strange now. Thinking about then and now, of how she had pictured it all, dreams pink and hazy. She had dreamt of this before. Now, she feels like she's starring in her own play, but the scenes are all off, distorted into shapes and forms she's no longer able to recognize.

She had imagined herself the stoic beauty with a serene look upon her flawless face as she threw a lone red rose into the grave with a gloved hand. Violins would be playing, as they looked one final time at the dead person before lowering him in the ground. She would even shed a tear, caught by the moment, stopped short by a finger before ending its trail. It would be a beautiful sunny day. She would wear black Jimmy Choos. The shoes had seemed very important to her at the time.

But in real life, the coffin had been sealed shut with nails. It had been sealed shut because half of Lavender had been missing. In real life, it was all heaving sobs and dull hair. She couldn't find the old dress and her face had been splotchy red. There had been so many funerals that she had lost count. In real life, it was all silent hours. Vacant stares.

No silver lining or moving speech had been made, because nothing, absolutely _nothing_ is beautiful or poetic about shredded people. Young people. War heroes. If you take away the hero in the word, it is just war and without the war there would have been no heroes and thus no funerals. (Shut up, her logic works.)

In real life, it had been raining nonstop, the rain soaking everything, burying it all underneath a deep layer of sticky mud. Her shoes had been smeared in it, the mud lodged underneath the heels so that she would carry the soil of the dead with her everywhere. Days after she had sat in her living room with a knife, scraping the dirt off in flakes of black. They had littered the floor, spreading in a circle away from her. It had taken hours of scraping to get it all out from the rims on her shoes. They had been ruined anyways.

Afterwards, she had swept the floor, sweeping it all underneath her Indian red rug with trembling hands. Months after she would still find small flakes of dirt sticking underneath the door or pressed against her skirt. It didn't matter how many times she'd clean the house, there would always be some pieces of evidence left. Evidence of sadness in her life. Evidence that her life had not been perfect, even if she wanted to pretend so.

She found a picture of Lavender today. (Hence the drinking.) The two of them wrapped around each other, smiling secretly with a dandelion braided into each their hair. Futures unmarred by any shade.

Parvati orders another whiskey and cola and thinks to herself that this is getting old. She kind of expected more of life. _I'm going to tell people's future,_ she had told Lavender in fifth year, back when Lavender was all Ron Weasley and that. He had hugged her at the funeral, did he. Been nice. And all. You know.

 _Nah, I'll become a psychologist and marry some rich bloke,_ Lavender had smiled. _We'll have a boy and a girl and live in Hampstead._ Lavender didn't get married or have kids, instead she got buried six feet underground.

She chugs down the drink, thinking to herself that no good will ever come of fifteen year olds' childish dreams. She has dreams now, too, you know. But they are grounded, free of whimsical dreams and hope. She wants to have a dog and find a man. It's simple. Happiness. Nothing more.

"Don't you think you've had enough now?"

Standing by her side is Seamus Finnegan, so tall she almost doesn't believe it's him. But he's frowning down on her and she figures he's quite real.

"I'ma drink as much as I want –" she slurs/nods at him. He takes a seat beside her.

"What are we drinking to?" he asks finally.

"Dead people," she tells him, "and mortgages."

"Mortgages?" he smiles, sipping slowly at his drink. "Is that some sort of drink?"

"No, _silly_ –" she giggles, gripping his arm to steady herself, because, okay she may have been tipping off her chair.

She peeks at him through her glass, "It's to do with money. Muggle stuff."

"Muggle stuff?" Seamus raises an eyebrow, "Didn't have you pinned down as a snob, miss Parvati."

She waves him off, "I'm a university student now, can't afford to be a snob."

"Ah. I see," Seamus says but she doesn't, she totally does not _see_ , in fact the edges are already blurring and she kind of has trouble focussing on his face. His eyes are very blue. Blue like the blue in the mists she placed on Lavender's grave.

"I'm drunk," she tells him forcefully, spilling half of the club soda across the bar table. Seamus nods, "I gathered as much."

"And Lavender's dead," she blurts, her brain not quite catching up with her.

Seamus is silent for a while, staring at her with Sad Eyes. It almost gets too unbearable, but then he lowers his gaze, "I know," he says gently, "and I'm sorry."

Lavender once told her that Seamus had the longest eyelashes she had ever seen and she would love to touch them one time. She keeps on remembering moments like these. The two of them, planning ahead. She'll marry an Indian man and be nice and _normal_.

Her brain displaying its disfunction again: "Can I touch your eyelashes?"

Seamus stares at her.

She shifts, "I mean. Um, it's just that they're long?"

His mouth wrinkles, "Is that so?"

She nods vigorously, "and pretty," she adds for effect.

He stares at her again so intensely that she can feel it all down into her toes, "You may," Seamus smiles.

His skin is very soft and she holds her breath as she brings an unsteady hand up to touch him. They flutter against her fingertips and Seamus laughs softly, his breath hitting her skin, before drawing back.

"Happy now?"

"No," it escapes her, the word punctuated by a slow sigh. Seamus rights himself. Stares a bit more as if he's seeing her for the first time.

They had sex, the two of them. Seventh year at the Christmas party Lavender and Seamus had reconnected over a cup of Eggnog. Lavender had told her all about it in the girls' toilet on fifth floor the Monday after, giggling secretly. _He's got great hands_ , she'd smiled.

The war ended and nothing changed and she was left standing in an empty bar with Elvis singing in the background of her surrender like a bad punch line. She enrolled in college. Embracing the Muggle illusion her mother had always wished she would fulfil, she began working and studying. Took sewing classes. Wore saris. Colourful splashes of colour draped across her chest. Took Philosophy. Because there is no way she'll ever make a career out of that.

"You're not okay, are you?" Seamus asks quietly and her throat feels kind of funny, heavy and tight. There's a memory too; Lavender staring at her by the lake with a smirk playing on her lips, _you need to stop worrying so much, Parvati._

She opts for the simple truth:

"I'm not the same,"

She looks away from him so that he can't see the rapid way she blinks her eyes, covering her mouth to stop the tremor. The barmaid is laughing loudly at a joke, leaning across the bar to look a man in the eyes. It's really simple, and then it isn't.

A hand touches her shoulder gently, "No one's the same."

This is the world they live in now. It is a world of shades of grey, less dangerous and insecure, but free of a purpose. In another world she wouldn't have spoken a word to him, had they met. In another world, Lavender would be sitting beside her, telling her about love.

"That's supposed to make me feel better, yeah? You'll start saying something crappy bit about purpose and change, right? And then – and then we'll hug and the scene'll fade right out - " She's dry. And bitter.

"No," Seamus takes her hand, the feeling is foreign and she weighs her options for a minute. She lets him, the warmth of his hand a comfort – it's very stabile. He rolls his thumb against the back of her hand. It's not a grand gesture, but it's something.

 _"Chin up, now," Lavender had said, puffing against Parvati's chin. "They'll never see the beauty if you don't let them."_ And Parvati would strut out her chin, her eyes fluttering in large, deliberate movements.

"We're all fucked up, really," Seamus wraps the words around a sip of his beer, his eyes not quite meeting hers, not quite looking away. It's still sincerity and she wonders who he lost.

The bottle hits her teeth, there's a sigh and the unmistakable patter of resentment.

 _We're equally dead,_ she thinks.

The pub is empty now. Seamus stands.

"Come on."

"No."

A smile filters across his mouth, "why not?"

"Because," she says, heart galloping in her chest, "Lavender – Lavender's _dead_ , Seamus. And – and we were supposed to live together in London, and she'd teach me how to be brave and – and how to make Shepherd's Pie – _Merlin_ , I don't even know how to make a simple English dish – and – and now I'm living alone with Indian stuff everywhere – and I just wanted to have her with me and she's slipping away, Seamus, she's not here anymore."

A silence passes in which she tries not to stare at his face.

"I know how to make Shepherd's Pie," Seamus says finally.

"You do?" the words come out in a soft breath.

"The best one south of London."

It seems impossible, but a small smile filters across her lips, she pushes her chair backwards and stands, jarring the table in the process. "Hm. That sounds promising."

Lavender used to tell her life was a matter of will and grabbing the moment. Parvati reaches for Seamus's outstretched hand and it's like a rope of saviour in a dark bottomless sea. She once stood by her side in every moment, taunting and happy in every aspect. As she slumps against his shoulder, inhaling deeply, Parvati knows, knows that life is a lot more than just a matter of grabbing the moment.

Seamus presses his lips against her forehead briefly. His lips are warm and the breath washes across her face and she thinks that maybe that's enough.

 **keep breathing**

(neville longbottom)

 _nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave - cormac mccarthy, the road_

It's nighttime when he does it. The moon is shimmering palely down at his form as he soundlessly apparates into his former home. He walks through the brick lidded grounds. Steps across rubbles and scorched suits of armour. He spots half a painting by the entrance-door and rights the gilded frame tenderly as he tries to ignore the stained wall in front of him. ( _It's blood, Neville,_ _ **blood**_ _._ )

The small path between the rubbles is barely visible, but he steps along it, determined. He quivers, the workings of reality hauling at him again. This place, these walls older than the unfathomable bellows of time, hold all that he ever thought necessary. Now, it is crumbling underneath his feet, an echo of days lived.

His steps echo in the deserted hallways, each step seems nearer to his conclusion, the flayed illusions of a little boy giving way to glory. The disenchantment of his childhood home feels like a kick to his gut and he runs a finger across dusty frames of grand notions in a soothing manner. A battered edition of Hogwarts: A History is lying open against the soiled ground, stained pages wrinkled by the mix of blood and mud. It sends an ache through him and he suddenly starts thinking about the hiss of the snake and how he had felt it all the way up through his fingertips tingling into his heart as he had parted it with determination.

The lesson at eighteen: killing it doesn't make it easier. It doesn't leave you either way. (The nightmares will be his constant companion.)

It's the little things that set him off. The cluster of Chocolate Frog Cards littered about the ground as if someone has spilled his entire collection in a gasp of horror. The pork roasts are still waiting on the tables, now half eaten by ravens. Even so, he feels a fleeting urge to sit down on the long table and toast to this – to Hogwarts, to the starry sky stretching far above his head. On the damp walls the scorched colourful banners are fluttering in a gush of wind that doesn't quite reach him. The half-eroded lion still roars its ugly head. This is the rhythm of his life in patterned beats of sorrow.

He climbs the stairs. Slowly, as he wills the realization of the situation to begin hauling on him. He steps across the false step, which is still playing pretend, playing pretend for no one to see.

He reaches the Fat Lady after a while of contemplating. He can feel the whispers of time reeling, hauling as he trails the outlines of the empty black frame. The entrance is unlocked. The irony strikes him when he is able to recall the password for the first time in his life.

 _Caput Draconis._

He cherishes this. He had forgotten this feeling of thundering loss and he can feel it all, now. How the years play through his mind, the sound is oddly muted, but the images are clear. The path is clear once more as he steps through the portrait, making sorrow the liquid of beauty as it drops off his chin and onto the wooden floor.

Inside it's a completely different world. Dust has collected upon surfaces, etched about a corner, and the curtain flutters on a breeze that doesn't quite reach him. He can hear the trickling of laughter and the ruffling of parchment as the fire burns. He can hear it all.

When he meets her, she has already been eyeing him for a while from a battered armchair. That had been the best one in the room, people always battling for it.

"Thought we'd agreed to stop meeting like this, Neville?"

He tries not to move his lips as he forms the word, "Sorry –"

"Come on, now," She smiles.

He will remember this. And sacrifice many things. Lie about others. And dream of all of this once more. It's a modicum of quiet descending as they stare across the room.

"Hannah, I –" he begins, but stops as he is unsure where or what to look at.

Hannah sighs. A speckle of light is playing in her hair and he is haunted by the image of Cormac lying on his stomach with his face in the mud, camera still hanging from around his neck.

It's hard to think. It's hard not to.

She steps closer, resting a warm hand on his shoulder. "Neville," she says, then again, and once more – for effort, " _Neville_ -"

"It needs to get easier," the words come out in a slow breath as his fingers curl in close for a fist.

"It will," Hannah curls her fingers in his shirt and sags against him. It's comforting. This warm body of tender desire. (He's not empty).

He murmurs something about sadness and numbness but the words are lost to the whisper of a breath against his cheek and he can feel life skimming back at him. Terror grips him once more, the exhalation leaving him in a shuddering gasp of air.

Hannah's lips graze his ear, "Don't worry, I'm still here."

The _unlike others_ goes unsaid and he can appreciate this; the grace and tenderness she treats him with.

It's what war does to you. Shaking your grounds and the peals of pasts become the future. Neville bends down to stare her into the eyes, the tips of his fingers pressing into the pulse of her neck, checking, feeling, to see – to know –

They are breathing.

It will be about choices and will, the motivation nearly ending him as he reaches for her hand. It is all very complicated.

And then it isn't.

 **before and after.**

(hermione)

 _it was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the rosenbergs, and i didn't know what i was doing in new york. (the bell jar; sylvia plath)_

It's like forgetting the words to your favourite song. You can't believe it, feeling like the words have merely slipped underneath the surface, scribbled across the night-sky. Time rewrites itself over and over again, and now it's at the beginning.

Several odd years later, she's dividing it all into before and after. Happiness and sadness. Guilt and power. Granger and Wilkins.

See, war doesn't leave you. Not even after the years stand on a row.

 **abababa**

It ends like this:

Adrenaline pumping hard, echoing loud and fast in her ears, matched beat by beat by the pounding of her footsteps. The crumbling of buildings, walls falling to pieces in her wake and images seared into the back of her head for all eternity. The mass splitting and the silhouette of him standing in the doorway. She feels herself reeling at the moment, awed for the first time by this alien creature. Then, the roaring triumph builds in her throat, ignited along her spine, _I knew you could -_

He stands there in the middle, crumbled form barely taking another step. It's the momentum that does her in, the hushed murmur that sifts through the crowd, one thing he has never had any trouble causing. She can feel the world breaking, past and present forever divided between that flash of light, split open like the scar on his forehead.

Harry collapses in her arms, her hands are flat against the planes of his back and Harry's shuddering breath is curling in the space behind her ear, heaving, gasping, and she presses her mouth against his chin, murmuring _You did it, did it –_ And Harry whimpers, lithe body sagging against her form – and suddenly, he doesn't seem so grand and foreign, and she can recognize him in the heaving sobs.

War makes boys men. War tears men apart and spits them out again, half-eaten.

Harry walks away.

Now _that_ really does her in.

 **ababababa**

Ron has a scar on his kneecap. It spreads wide from the crook of his leg, slowly widening as it spreads upwards. She traces the outline of the raw skin tenderly on those days at the porch, curled around him like melted butter. It's the simple things that do her in. She hasn't thought of them in a long while now.

That's a lie.

 _It's not abandoning_ , she tells herself fiercely. _It's sparing_ –

Sparing who?

There's no difference, really.

 **abababa**

"Can I sit?"

She doesn't sleep at night, but sit up gazing at the moon. He joins her on most nights. There are silences agreed to. Intimacies put away.

"Of course."

Harry's face is older. She doesn't know what it is, maybe it's the half-beard embracing his chin, or the dark shadows underneath his eyes. If she's honest (which hardly happens anymore), she's quite sure it's the look in his eyes and the hunch of his back.

She doesn't know when lies became much easier than her truths. Maybe it's part of growing up, learning to lie to yourself when reality will swallow you whole.

"I hear Australia's nice this time of the year." Harry's eyes are wilderness green, all wrapped up in softer-than-soft softness, just for her.

"I wouldn't know."

"Hermione."

She dreams of the sea, of Hogwarts crumbling and the curve of her mother's smile.

She doesn't ask Harry about the dreams that wake him up screaming in the middle of the night (she hears them, though). And he doesn't ask her why she doesn't sleep at night.

It's the yearly tribute to their generation with paper-thin smiles.

 **abababa**

Finding herself is like finding a lost necklace. It is familiar, yet she never realized it was missing until she can feel it between her fingers, stirring in her gut. _War does this to people_ , Ron will murmur, but what he doesn't realize is that she has been lost for a lot longer than this war.

She has dreams now, horror dripping off every one; she still wakes up in the middle of the night crying out the name of dead people. It isn't sorrow, but it's a fear that seems to have been merged underneath her skin, seeping into her bones. It isn't rational, nor is it proper, but admittedly, rationality has never been appropriate in times of war. (Times of peace, Hermione _, peace_. )

This is why she still won't return to Hogwarts.

"You could go back, you know," Harry's eyes are dull and his mouth barely moves. She stares at him, wonders if he'll ever be okay. They sit side by side at breakfast, her head is higher, eyes to the front as her fingers smooth over the back of his hand.

"It's not – it's not that simple," she breathes.

"It could be."

The first few steps are hard. Dragging along the pavement as life starts up again. It's the broken sound of her breath hiccupping in her throat, signalling the beginning once more. (It's only she who's too old for this town).

 **abababa**

It's a spur of the moment thing.

( _yeah, right_.)

"I'm leaving," she tells Ron one afternoon.

"Huh?" he's half asleep, half-not listening. She dreams of the sea, of Hogwarts crumbling into the ground, of the screams of terror, tearing into the night.

 **abababa**

Australia is like the movies. All hot, with a whirl of red dusty sand, whirring against the slope of her chin.

"Nice to meet you," Her mother has dimples now.

She has spent half her life moving purposely in accordance to popular beliefs. The rest, she's spent trying to make amends. It's time for her to start living. She gave life all she had. Now, she's wondering when she'll get it all back.

"Nice to meet you," Her mother says again and brushes a hand against hers.

She still has warm hands and she comes to think, despite herself. It's quite the spell, _Obliviate_ , erasing moments and leaving gaps.

She wonders if this life is better, if she's being selfish now.

It's quite the spell and she's quite the witch. (and bitch – your own _parents_ , betraying them –)

See, life is difficult and moreover, it's unfair and hard.

A line crosses her mother's mouth, she can hear the thoughts churning in her head as were they words painted across brick walls in rainbow colours.

 _It's rude not to introduce yourself_ –

"I'm Hermione," she tells her, teeth smiling.

Monica Wilkins smiles, "That's my dog's name."

A dog.

A _dog_ -

 _See you around_ , she tells her through gritted teeth, marching right into the scorching sun. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

 **ababab**

The Minister held a speech, telling them of greatness and sadness. It had been static, twisted words that had sounded wrong to the ears.

 _You don't understand._

There is nothing more than this. He had eyed the room, beady eyes touching faces with the sorry painted across every acre of skin.

 _Life shall move on_ , he had said.

And so it shall. She wills the world to spin from this.

She had been the one to pick up Harry in the bar, hosing him down in her small shower with his clothes still on. She had been the one spooning him night after night for a week, her body curling around his square form with bones jutting out everywhere.

He had cried and she had pressed her lips against his cheek, murmuring nonsense to his ears. Nonsense because nothing can make amends for all of these things. He had cried.

Everybody cries. Ron cried when they all left to fight – he even cries when he thinks she's sleeping, folded against his chest. Ginny had cried when Hermione ran up the broken stairs of Hogwarts screaming, sobbing, _it's over, it's over –_

It's not over.

She finds a photograph behind their green velvet couch. It's her own freckled face with two large front teeth and braces _everywhere_. Every detail is still there, right in the faded picture. Her parents gazing down at her, arms thrown around her. Their British house in the background and her small black shoes with the laces untied. Her mother's red petunias. She had half expected she would have been missing there, too.

She frowns at the nostalgia and tugs it away again, covered by a flayed pillow once more. It's like she wants it to be there. In case – In case they one day decide to clean the house out and they'll find it, wondering how she got there between the two, wondering how she could fit so neatly into the crook of their arms. ( _She does, though, fit perfectly in there_ –)

 **ababa**

There are no otters in Australia.  
That's when the irony strikes her.

 **ababab**

She decides to get out of Australia. She gets as far as to Sydney before stalling.

(See, it's a long road running away.)

 **ababab**

 _It's surviving that matters_ , Ginny once told her, but Hermione is quite sure they're all corpses playing make-believe after a war that destroyed _everything_. She can't explain the nightmares, the ones of perished houses and bodies decaying on a battlefield of children.

She even contemplates that. The easiness of death, of slipping away quietly to have all the noise and static replaced by complete silence.

She lies on the beach of Sydney, letting each ray of light blind her, burning her eyelids red with the golden hue. It all slips away then, the light blinding her with white, people becoming pale filmy silhouettes of nothing. It all becomes easier. But then she can feel him, on top of her, his breath in her ear and the sharp jut of his hip. Life skimming back at her through the burn of his lips. And it's not easy. It's never been easy. Everything hurts. It hurts to even _breathe_ out of loss, regret – _love_. _Dammit._

As for the beginning of them, she should probably know:

This ends with a letter she never wrote.

 **ababab**

The city lights here are dimmer than back home.

There's a boy, too.

Sam. Sam with the funny accent and beach blond hair. He's got one dimple that Hermione's rather fond of looking at.

"Hey doll," Sam says and she bumps her nose along his chest, burying her face from everything. He says her name the way Ron used to say it: innocently and breathy, her name tainted with equal simplicity.

He kisses her, fingers curling around her waist as she clings to him. His mouth sloppy against her throat as he breathes, _love_. She clings to it too, trying to merge him into her world. There's a memory too, the sticky, sweaty stretch of autumn they spent in tents in British woods, too damp and cold, and the shimmer of his body against hers, the curve of his lips against hers. She can recall happiness but it feels oddly muted, even as Sam slips down her body, nudging her legs apart.

"Sam –" she sighs, and then it ends.

He looks down for a second, studies their hands clasped between them, silent for a beat, "Shouldn't be surprised, now should I?"

Her chin on his shoulder, "I'm _sorry_ –"

His eyes are half-closed, his mouth soft, " _No_ -" he squeezes her hand, "no, it's farewell, not sorry –"

She'll miss it then.

 **ababba**

As for the beginning, it is when she'll start facing reality. That's been a while coming.

Wendel Wilkins teaches her how to ride a horse. _It's the attitude that does it,_ he smiles and clicks his tongue. If they've noticed her absence they don't tell her.

There a many memories here, lodged in the back of her throat, festering. Some are easy, the memories wrapped around people and events, the conversations are more difficult, blurred around the edges as they shift between reality and dreams.

The heat is choking, like a deep thick blanket weighing down on top of her and she remembers why it was they never took trips like these in her childhood. _It's too hot out here, Hermione,_ her mother would say, _how does anyone live in this heat?_

And there she lays, her own mother with a great tan and her voice singed with the edge of a new accent, an all around contradiction to her former self.

She didn't know regret could be smart like that.

 **ababab**

"Hermione."

His voice rises over the sound of the waves slamming into the beach, almost too akin to a prayer or a falling incarnation. "Hermione," he says again and she has to look at him.

"You –" her voice sounds very small compared to the significance of the moment, "You didn't have to come."

"But I did."

" _Ron_ –"

He is all she has ever known, so she thinks he's all she'll ever come to love. He steps forward as she stands there in her pink flip-flops.

"Hermione," he says once more for effort and it's _way_ different to any other way anyone's ever said it, and she gets this funny thought that he should be the only one to ever say her name, because right now, she can't imagine a more beautiful sound that _that_ -

Her name leaves his lips one final time as he stands in front of her, his eyes endless stretches of blue, blue like the sea behind her. He says it quietly, almost reverently as if he can't believe he's here. She can't believe it either, and because of that she cups his face, her fingers curling against his jaw. His pulse beats against her fingertips, hard and strong and it's more reassuring than anything she has ever felt.

"Do you need anything?" she asks softly in a whisper.

"Well," he says, "You."

And then his mouth closes over hers.

 **abababa**

It ends like this:

"You need to come home to me,"

She can still remember the first time she realized she loved him. It had sneaked up on her like accepting she would probably die for him. She can remember arguing over breakfast, in between classes and feeling life was an endless stretch of space. She remembers Tonks and Remus's still faces and their clasped hands and knows that life is nothing but the blink of an eye.

See, the great thing about Australia is that life always takes you by surprise. Her father is skinny ankles, going bald-happy. There's a great deal of love as he stands there, hairy legs peeking out from his magenta shorts. There's a new line spreading across his forehead, dividing his face in half. She should not be the other half.

Important: she needs to fix this.

 **ababab**

In the end, it's the rationality that gets her. ( _Why_ is she even surprised?)

"You have great teeth," Monica tells her over coffee. Her wand digs into her back, the world spinning in tumbles of thunder. She feels like screaming, really. Instead, she stands there in her pink flip-flops with a hhand on her hip, the other by her wand.

There are people. There are stories. It's time she starts shaping hers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Format:** Short story

 **Chapters:** 2  
 **Word Count:** 9,389  
 **Status:** COMPLETED

 **Rating:** Mature  
 **Warnings:** Strong violence, Scenes of a mild sexual nature, Substance abuse, Sensitive topic/issue/theme, Spoilers

 **Genres:** Romance, Angst, Young Adult  
 **Characters:** Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fleur, Fred, George, Ginny, Neville, Seamus, OtherCanon  
 **Pairings:** Harry/Ginny, Bill/Fleur, Ron/Hermione, Neville/Luna, Other Pairing

 **First Published:** 06/03/2012  
 **Last Chapter:** 11/22/2014  
 **Last Updated:** 11/22/2014

 **Summary:**

CREDITS | Contour tda

Life goes on. Except when it doesn't.

 _Post-DH. Everyone grieves in different ways. Various pairings._

Winner of the 2014 Golden Paw, Best Character Development  
& Winner of the Golden Snitches 2014, Best Angst.

 **A/N** : This one was _hard_. It seems that my great ideas aren't as obvious a year later. The first part came easily, the second, not so much, and the last part - _gah_. But I suppose it's time I finish something for once and this has been lying half-finished for over a year in my hpff folder. So here it is. I hope you like it. I guess it's a work in process like all my stories are. I might come back and fiddle about with it again, but this is the raw material and I hope you like it. If you do, feel free to leave me some love.

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize.

 **BEFORE : AFTER**  
(part two)  
SUNFLOWER

 **ababababa**

 **friend or foe?**  
(george weasley)

 _Names like pain cries, names like tombstones, names forgotten and reinvented, names forbidden or overused. - (Richard Siken, Saying Your Names)_

"Fancy seeing you here," she says softly in a murmur, her eyes too large, her mouth soft. There are droplets of water cascading down the sides of her face, framing her wet eyes. A hand rests on the doorframe, uncertain for the beat of a moment. Outside the rain has been coming down for hours.

Lately, it seems to him, that it never stops raining.

Being a twin means many things. Shared toys, shared bedrooms and at times, shared minds. They shared an idea, which blossomed into a shop, they shared lonely, cold nights over the fire and they fought side-by-side inside the battle's heat, sharing the thrill of doing what was right. Now, with her sad face in front of him, he's not sure there has ever been a right or wrong; a meaning to it all.

They shared so many things that he can now barely remember what is only his. It did not seem to matter at the time, but now there seems nothing more important.

Yet, they didn't share everything.

His hand is cutting gashes inside the plum flesh of his palm, throat gashes in the wrong place.

"Angelina."

She looks up at him, and he can almost see the hope brimming there. He hopes she understands the words unspoken, resting here in the space between them. _Sorry. I miss him, too. Yeah, it's not getting easier, is it?_ They press into the room, curling into each other, reaching beyond borders, grasping at them like strings in the night, desperately reaching to mend two broken hearts.

The silence goes on, their stare a silent communication. A door opens, perhaps in saviour and they step towards it.

He's still trying to work out how this will go.

 _Friend or foe, George? Friend or foe?_

They press into the small shoebox room together, shoulders sliding against each other, almost purposely. Two deep-red plastic chairs have been shoved side-by-side inside this crammed room. Behind a large oak-desk, an even larger man sits. He gestures quite unnecessarily towards the chairs.

"Sit."

They sit quietly. Their thighs press tightly against each other, fingertips nearly touching. He sneaks a glance at her, watching the long slope of her nose, the tender tilt to her neck, the exquisite blush shading her cheeks.

She's always been exquisite; he can remember her in Fourth Year, dancing like he wasn't even watching. He'd seen it then, before many. That beauty of hers is like rainbows on rainy days, lightning up the sky and everything around her. Right now it's shaded, sorrow masking the sweet sunshine-sting to her eyes. But he's also always known his place, in the shadows, watching a brother hold her hand.

"George Weasley, Angelina Johnson."

In front of them, the colossal man takes on a severe tone, bidding their eyes to meet his.

"You have been summoned to the reading of Fred Weasley's final living will."

They didn't share everything, you know.

 **ababab**

"Can we have tea? Please?"

Her mouth has a sad twist to it, her eyes angled away from him as if to hide the emotions there. Her hands grip the rim of her purse tightly, tiptoeing outside the lawyer's office.

There's a notion of unfamiliarity between them, something that has sneaked in with the absence of his brother. A draft billows against his face from the room across the hall. It's another office dealing with death. He's never realized until now how many people die – how _often._

Panic blisters his stomach as he watches her downcast eyes. She'll want to _talk_. His arms are loose, uncomprehending by his side, yet the words slide out of his mouth, frail like air.

"There's a _Wanda's_ down the corner?"

See, grief is like that. Conniving. Forcing people together and tearing them apart.

 **abababa**

They are silent across from each other, letting the tight bustle of the café swallow their conversation, eyes darting back and forth, checking, only to waver once more.

He can't possibly talk to her about _this_ , not when there isn't anything for him to say. All that's running through his mind is that she's lovely.

Angelina looks up from her mug of tea.

"George, I –"

"You're gorgeous – no, I mean. You're beautiful, you are –"

Air clutters his throat, as he snaps it closed, squirming in his seat. Angelina is sitting across from him, her hand paused on her mug, mouth gaping wide. Heat sprinkles up across his cheeks, warming his ears.

"Sorry," he offers. "Not really good at stuff like this."

He doesn't know what he means by _stuff_. If it's Fred, or it's her, or what it is.

Fred had been the smart-ass. The ladies' man. Even when no one seemed to tell them apart, there had still been that. He's witnessed too many young girls' hopeful faces, asking for George, only to mistake them.

It seems impossible to him now, trying to pick the two of them apart. He's never thought about it before, but now that they have been sliced apart it's all he seems to be able to commit to. Those freckles that used to be pointers, dividing them. He's spent hours in front of the mirror these past weeks, inking in his brother's, bridging across flushed cheekbones and petty eyelashes. Those freckles can merge the two, surely.

If only it were enough.

In the end it had proven pointless and watching the dark-tinted water spread beneath his toes against bathroom-tiles had felt like losing his brother all over again.

Her eyes are kind as she looks at him and he squirms underneath her stare. She sits there and she watches, crossing and uncrossing her legs.

"I know… That I'm… I'm no good at this… stuff. So. Yeah." George fumbles to save the conversation, which is horrible and awkward. She looks older, mature and quite magnificent, sitting there with a smile cutting into her chin.

Her hand finds his. "You know, I miss him, too."

You're not going to get anything better than _that._

 **abababab**

It's a moment before he trusts himself to speak again.

"I never say the right thing… I…"

"He thought a lot of you." Angelina's hand encircles his, drawing them closer to her chest. He meets her eyes reluctantly.

" _I_ thought a lot of him."

He's attended funerals. Seen the face of grief, knowing he could say, _I still spend my nights, half-hoping to die before I wake, too._ He doesn't say it, though. All he does is stand solely by the side, watching as they lower his own twin brother into the ground again and again.

He had liked it, splitting emotions, memories and laughter. They were never one without the other, never losing each other. Now, he's more lost than a key, a hopeless wanderer amongst the sea of people. He keeps on glancing at faces in the crowd; helplessly asking himself _is that you? Are you it? How do you go on?_

Angelina grips his hand like an anchor in a stormy night. "He knew you'd be alright, he did, George."

He thinks of the red gash along Fred's collarbone, the smile still far-reaching across his pale face. The sound of his laugh cut short by the killing curse and the deep _thud_ as he hit the ground, rolling, rolling and rolling, until finally, lying so morbidly still.

Her thumb is stroking circles on the back of his hand, achingly tender. He feels like he's exhaling into the empty air where his brother used to stand. He fits his fingers in-between hers, sliding flesh against flesh.

There are three people in this embrace.

She looks up at him, and he can't ignore her eyes, telling, not asking.

 _Be with me in this._

They never shared grief like this.

 **ababba**

Life goes on, they say. Sometimes, mercifully so. He never came to realize the accuracy of this sentence until now.

Angelina is good with numbers. Hiring her is a natural progress, really.

 _Really._

"If we increase the production of the Nose-bleed Nougats along with the love-potions, we'll get twice the income."

It is odd, learning new things about her. Like how she bites the end of her quill, and how she always spills ink on her fingers, her nails black-soot covered. How these small soft snores escape her when she falls asleep on the battered couch in the corner of the shop. How she likes her tea black and without sugar. Strong, like she is.

It's those intimate details to her person that catch him off guard, surrendering him to her.

When he catches her hanging up a photo of Fred, he knows it's already done for.

When they pass each other in the hallway, steadying each other by lingering touches, it happens gradually. Sometimes, he'll say something _so_ Fred that even he will notice it. Angelina will meet his eyes and it's as if the ghost of him is too palpable in the air between them.

Yes, one art is losing, another is mastering it.

 **ababab**

In the end, they shared a woman. A wonderful and kind woman. As all things go, Angelina proved both their saviour.

"So, when were you planning on making a move on me?"

She says it casually, over a cup of tea. He spills his cup, scorching his lap.

" _Shit!_ "

With the flick of her wand, the liquid is gone and she's cradling his face, her eyes kind. Her thumb brushes across his lips, once, twice. He can smell her breath, the sweetest lavender. He sinks.

Her smile is all consuming.

"Really, what does a girl have to do to get something here?"

It's quite simple, really.

 **ababab**

 **victoire/victory**  
(fleur)

Do you remember, remember? The tale of the fairest maiden in the kingdom, who came to the foreign country and wooed the shining knight. They wed on the blackest night with blood soiling her dress.

They almost looked like hands stretching towards her.

Bill fell in love with her at twenty-five. His eyes had painted her as the beauty she once was, all seventeen innocence and golden hair. There are times when she thinks back on those simple days, with his laughter in her ear, a long tangle of limbs and small cabin-rooms with dimmed lights. Joy so sweet it seemed to linger in the doorway, pitpatter in the hallway and fill their laughter with flurried wonder. It didn't matter that his mother didn't approve, it didn't matter that they were young and at war.

She'd felt so light at the time. Like a ballerina at her mother's ballet-class, flurrying upwards, spinning into rosy chapters of decadent dreams. She'd been young. You don't really get how young you can be, even when you believe you're older than your years – it doesn't change. You still advance. Her entire life, she's been constantly advancing, gaining speed.

Looking back now, the crash had seemed inevitable, even to her.

 **ababab**

There are five different flowers growing in their backyard.

Fleur knows this better than anything in this world, because she's planted them herself. Some days, wandering barefoot among the shrubs, she'll mark the days for happiness. It's a bit like marking a page in a book, making sure to keep it marked for later reads. She'll stand among the flowerbeds, feeling the soft earth between her toes and breathe the salty air in, like a prisoner escaping her captivity.

Out here, it's quiet.

The only bitterness here is the wind against her cheeks, the only malice is the rumble of thunder. The only trace of war is the scars still left on Bill's face.

That's why she marks the happy days.

Because there are days when the shadows seem to creep from the white-burnt clefts of her husband's face. Days when the long divide of the ocean isn't enough to keep the sorrow at bay. It inches in with the Western winds, playing soft melodies on their wind chime.

She'll sit lonely at their dinner table and listen to the chime of the Western winds, bringing reality with its looming skies and matted hair. Bill goes fishing, pulling out the boat and crossing the sea, all just to escape the gentle tunes of the wind chime.

You know, they never said running away would be the answer. They never said you _could_ run away.

This? This is the part where you learn how to fight. In those early hours when the sun peaks before it crests, as Bill's hunched figure trots home, she waits for him by the gates. It's a slight, needling prick of courage; learning how to fight for your life – for your own _happiness_.

His smile is weary, but warm. His fingers slide across her jaw, curling around her neck, his lips scorching her skin. His mouth slips and slides, her name a murmur pressed like reassurance into her skin.

The thing about happiness?

It doesn't come easily, we'll tell you that.

 **abbaba**

You fall in love. Young people think the world is conquerable. They used to think the same, undermining the corpses on the floor, sweeping them underneath the mat where they kept anything unmanageable.

That is, until it was Fred's dead body stretched out on the pavement, the shadow of an adolescent laugh still blooming on his rosy lips.

She doesn't remember the last thing she told him. Doesn't recall a single important conversation in which he told her of the weight of his fears.

She does remember the night before and laughing in his company.

They had been at the pub the night before. Joking, laughing to fiddle-music and dancing around the crammed place, swinging in and out between people. Stepping over feet and giggling inappropriately at the barmaid's flirting tactics.

" _Don't you dare drop me, Fred Weasley."_ She had laughed into his ear, her fingers holding onto his so tightly, afraid to loosen just a tiny bit for the fear of falling. And Fred's booming laughter against her hair, his hand pressing her closer to his body, swinging her faster and faster, a rush of happiness inside the minutes of a mindless clock.

" _I've got you, dear sister."_

She remembers finding him, all cold and unyielding in death. Then, finding Bill. The feel of his body crumbling beneath her fingers, a sob ripping through his body, tearing it in two. Her incapable fingers merely clutching at threads, trying desperately in vain to hold him together.

They had covered his face, but she had pushed it down. She had wanted to see his face. To see the blankness etched into the corners of every wrinkle, every corner. His eyes were open. She had closed them slowly, her fingers numb but surprisingly head fast.

The pain had been slower for her, like an inkling of horror. While holding her husband's broken heart in one hand, her own heart had crumbled beneath her bones, beating against its bony cage, bleeding out. The pain had been slow indeed, almost sneaking up on her.

 **abababa**

Then it had consumed her world.

Bill used to like taking her for walks, letting her in on how Britain worked. It had been a game to them, a sort of secret she was slowly being introduced to. Like learning love.

But when he comes to stand inside their living room, his boots still on and the wind of the sea still roaring in his hair, she know, _knows_ what he's about to say. They've played their parts in this scene so many times, she seems to know her actions by heart, her tears running the same tracks down dried cheeks.

Because asylums rarely stay asylums.

In the bedroom, she hiccups and blinks back tears. Her fingers are clumsy with the bobby pins as she fastens her hair. Bristled fibres kiss her skin, matting away the redness.

Bill is in the other room, his muffled sobs a knife against her neck.

Sometimes she is tempted to call it off as another fairy tale, one she is soon to wake up from, inside her old four-poster bed with her teddy by her side, all dirty and missing a button-eye. Fifteen again and innocent. Unmarred by any shade.

Because there are dragons at this gate. And the knight is weary, slipping smile falling from her outstretched arms.

She can still recall the frozen smile upon pallid features, lips parted for the sound of fear that will never come. She always thought death would be peaceful, quiet. Instead, it's roaring shades of horror, sickly sweet odours that press into your airways, choking everything. It's the death mirrored in every face she passes out the Great Hall, it's the quiet moans of a little girl losing her best friend, crumbled underneath the table, hiding for the monsters. It's the sure rumble of kids growing up much too soon.

And it's every nightmare she's ever had, only this one is real.

 **abbaba**

She can tell you things she knows to be true.

That French people are the best lovers, the greatest lovers. All love stories are French, even if it's only in the spirit.

That her mother's rhubarb tart is the best one in the world.

That her love, this love between her and Bill, is truer than anything else.

That Bill's hands belong on her body. His hands on her waist, fitted below the curve of her waist, it belongs there. Nowhere else. It had been the first thing to ever be hers, completely. And she'll always love him the most, for that.

She guesses first loves are always a bit like that.

All he had had to say was _"I'm guessing you're new here?"_ And that was that.

They spent their honeymoon in their asylum by the sea. His love so honest and bare that she'd felt at times that it would be too much for them, to bear it all. She'd told him, in that French stutter of hers, that she'd always dreamt of living on the beach with small rooms where you can hear everything. ( _That means the silence, too, you know_ ).

She didn't figure that one out until the end.

 **ababba**

She wants to be an optimist.

Especially when Bill tells her, " _I don't know where to start. Only where to end."_

They don't talk about the little things, the intangible. The fact that there is quite a difference between loving someone at seventeen and then at twenty-one. And how wars can come to stand between the two of you, mending the broken parts and then forging you together like it had once done before. They were forged in the blaze of the fire. Amidst a war.

So she pulls him up against her in the darkness of their bedroom, her legs intertwining with his. Her heels dig into his shins and she commands, begs, really.

 _"Look at me. Look at me."_

And he does.

Do you remember? The tale of the fairest maiden in the kingdom, who came to the foreign country and wooed the shining knight. They wed on the blackest night with blood soiling her dress. They fell in love.

Trust us, there are no more dragons at this gate.

And in the darkness he falls asleep, nestled on her chest, feeling her chest expand, breath for breath.

There have been way too many sad stories in this lifetime and theirs won't be another. She won't let it.

Really, it's that French stubbornness of hers that carries them through.

 **ababab**

It is like riding her bike again, learning how to be brave.

 _Bill,_ she says, in that tender octave of her voice, thrilled by the sound of his name rolling off her tongue. _Bill, Bill, Bill_ –

His laughter is the best medicine, rolling onto the mattress, his body reassuring against hers, his fingers gripping her with life.

They'll write a story of you, you know.

 **ababab**

And when nature takes it course, there seems to be brighter days. Sometimes she feels that this pregnancy, this child is much more a child of the world than it is of her.

They all need this.

And when the birth comes, all thundering screams and joyful tears, she names her Victoire because it's the victory of her own undoing: the certain mirage of her life.

And when Bill cries, his silent undoing against her chest, holding his wide-eyed daughter to him tightly, she knows that this is their very own victory, too.

 _Victoire._


End file.
